do we need a garden?

[GeordieVik]

Advice please mumsnetters! We're relocating to the North East, and have decided to look for a period property rather than another newish build, ideally somewhere we fall in love with. Only prob is, most of the older houses only have yards. How important do you think a garden is for bringing up a child? Our DS is 10 months old. As far as I know, in the villages we're concentrating on, there aren't any play areas, and the houses are close to main roads, so he would be restricted to the yard or the back 'lane'.
What do you think? Should we sacrifice our desire for a dream home so that we can have a garden for him?

We have similar dilemna. We live in a beautiful house in the centre of town - we can walk everywhere but we have a tiny garden. DD will be 5 soon and we are on the look out for a house with a garden . It's much easier when they are older (anything from 2 upwards) to to let them and their friends play in the garden - also you can have climbing frames, paddling pools etc. My poor dd always asks why we can't have a house with a garden like her friends so that she can invite them round in the summer to play and to have a picnic. Probably not what you wanted to hear but it's just my opinion. Good luck with whatever you decide.

To be honest, my kids only play in the garden on the handful of occasions when the weather is nice enough. Although personally we could probably live without a garden, the playpark with a large playing field is only a short walk from my house and I dont think I could live somewhere that didn't have that sort of facility for my dd and ds, but thats only imo, others may think differently.

We live in a Victorian house now with a small courtyard garden and we had a large garden on our list for our new house but we have bought another Victorian house with an even smaller garden!

Thats a difficult one, dream house or decent garden. As your child is so young, it would be many years before you could allow him to go to park on his own anyway, are there many parks that you can drive to?

We moved from large brand new house with tiny garden to old house with holes in roof etc with 220' garden, & it was best decision ever. DS rides his bike around the garden. Friends come round with toddlers to let them burn off energy on trampoline / climbing frame etc. Teenagers have BBQs, badminton, somewhere to go. If we ever had to move again I would always go for less house more garden.

if the yard is an ok size is there anyway u can lay grass? ONly this is what a friend of mine has done to her house

meant ot say that my ds loves the garden and he is 16mths last summer he was out there all the time and this yr he is already trying to unlock the patio doors

You don't need a garden if you are close to a park/play area, but I would personally go mad if I had neither as we are always outside. So easy to open the doors and let them out in the garden!

For me a garden was very important when the boys were pre-schoolers. We just lived out there.

But since they've been at school they rarely go in it. They get plenty of fresh air and exercise walking to school and at playtimes; they are more likely to play in the street on their bikes with their mates. If they want to play football or something then they need a lot of space, and go down to the playing fields or the park. At this age (they are 5 and 7) the garden seems largely redundant for us.

the yard at the house we love if 15'7" by 14'. There's a seperate garage we could knock down & use for something (parking / more garden) although we will need to make space for 2 cars.

WestCountryLass, what made you decide to go for another small garden? How old is / are your kid(s)?